


and there I shut her wild wild eyes, with kisses four

by withkissesfour



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 07:41:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withkissesfour/pseuds/withkissesfour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s never been taught how to grieve, and he doesn’t think he’s doing it right, but he doesn’t know what else to do. So he stays in the armoury where she kissed him, and works away at everything in the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and there I shut her wild wild eyes, with kisses four

**Author's Note:**

> A George/Bronwen crack!pairing fic reposted from my livejournal. Inspired by conversations with longjackets, my bb! 
> 
> Bronwen, by the way - is the minor minor character from the Merlin pilot who talked about her betrothed and was sung to death by Helena. George is the brass fellow. They're in love. Apparently this pairing has totally become a bit of a thing now. Go check out [Home Is Wherever I'm With You.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/967997/chapters/1900459?show_comments=true&view_full_work=false#comment_4679568)

He watches her climb a tree one afternoon, her hands scraping absent-mindedly against the aging bark as she pulls her legs up the trunk, yellow hair whipping the wind.

 

He doesn’t pay much attention to her quick progression to the clouds because he thinks it’s a pretty stupid thing to do, and he’s got wood to collect and girls are overwhelmingly unimportant and  _icky_ at twelve years old. But she’s kind of hard to miss, and every now and then shouted lullabies and the curve of her round face and the mud drying on the bottom of her dress stumble over his senses.

And he’s almost used to her presence, high above him; and he’s almost used to the leaves falling from her bouncing; and he’s almost used to the high-pitched, faint lilt of her young voice – when it changes to a scream.

It’s short and sharp and he whips his head around to see her hanging precariously from the end of a branch, her legs clinging to the swaying wood and hands scrambling frantically to find grip.

And he doesn’t know it’s  _her._ Doesn’t know what she’ll mean to him. Doesn’t know just how much he’ll love her.

But amidst fear and shock, in the fleeting seconds where he thinks she’ll plummet straight to the forest floor, there’s a pain that falls through the nerves of his strange, lonely body and leaves him breathless with the thought of losing a girl he’s never met.

But he doesn’t lose her.

He strains his neck to see her regain her balance, mouth curling into an unexpected, shocked smile as her friend below shakily berates her. He wants to join in.

And then she laughs. Like almost falling twenty feet was the most exciting adventure of her life. And although girls are overwhelmingly unimportant and  _icky_ at twelve years old, and what she did was pretty stupid – he decides, with youthful concentration, that he might like to marry someone like her one day.

\--

  
She lives on the periphery as he wades through adolescence. As he gets the most ridiculous haircut; as he falls in love with the daughter of the blacksmith and the awful girl down the street and the red-head who sells pots in the market; as he swallows all the jokes people don’t seem to like; as he learns to fight and read and write and be on his own.

There are a few friends – who saunter in and out of his life as they please – but the general consensus is that he’s rather  _odd._ It’s a sentiment that’s repeated so often he’s inclined to believe it.

And there’s his mother – who runs long, wrinkled fingers through his cropped hair and sighs  _it’s alright, George_ and  _ignore them_ over his sobs and into the empty house; as he listens to the cracked lilt in her murmurs and worries that he’ll be as lonely as her.

Then he hears her sing in the marketplace, the girl.

She’s concealed by a heavy sheet of rain and a few years of aging, and he’s never had the most fantastic memory so he doesn’t know whether it may or may not be the girl who almost fell out of the tree.

But he knows she’s got the most wonderful voice.

And he knows – watching the yellow hair plaster to her face, the indiscriminate smile crawl across her cheeks as she catches his gaze, a coin falling into the soaked cloth in front of her – that she’s just about as odd as he is.

And he knows – somewhere amongst the confusion and the insecurities and the raging hormones – that he’d like to marry someone like her one day.

\--

 

He’s overwhelmed, without her.

He whispers a trembling hand over the white stone and he can’t breathe. Can’t put one foot in front of the other without an ache tearing across his body, because he’s  _so_ new, and so terrified, and so lonely.

But he listens as best he can, and fumbles his fingers around platters and bows his unsure head towards a preoccupied Morgana and drowns the ache and the teasing and the ever-present worry in work he knows he’s good at.

Polishing. And stuff.

“George?”

She’s got a wide smile, and a strange, bouncy way of walking and she knows his name. And he thinks that she’s waiting for him to answer her. But he doesn’t say a thing.

He just turns the cloth over in his hands and furrows his brow and focuses his attention on the new, gray metal. His feet curl further under his body, and his mind pulls the tears from his eyes and down upon his chest and his shoulders square against incoming sociability.

But she doesn’t leave.

He raises his chin slightly and sees her, still there, slipper-clad feet rocking energetically between heel and toe as she searches his eyes with her jovial, intent gaze.

“Can I help you?”

Her yellow hair has fallen in pieces around her long neck and her mouth, which threatened to stretch into a yawn, or fall into a frown, widens in a gentle smile instead.

“I was about to ask you the same thing, actually. You see – I’ve not finished for the day, but that Arthur’s being a right prat and – and I wanted to get away. Seems like you got the same idea  - and, well, I saw you in the corridor. You looked…overwhelmed! To say the least.  I know what it’s like…trust me. I thought, maybe – you could use some company…”

He’s not prepared for her – for how fast she speaks, for how much she smiles; and the armour falls idle in his hand as he watches slender fingers bunch around a faded green dress, and as he wonders how she stays so… _happy._

“’m fine…”, he mumbles.

“I know! I just…”

She bites her bottom lip then and, thoughtfully, wanders to his side of the armory and slides down the wall next to him, knocking their knees together.

“I know I don’t know you very well. But it’s a hard place to work – this castle. Don’t you think? It’s alright to be poor, but to be reminded of it  _every day!_ That’s another thing…right?”

He doesn’t say a word – can’t form the syllables to answer her. He just thinks about his mother and her dark hair and her long, wrinkled fingers and the lament she made every day of her life, the  _we’re poor, George_ that drove her into the ground.

And he thinks about this girl – carrying the conversation for the both of them. Ending all her sentences with exclamations and telling him all the things he really needs to hear.

“It’s hard, especially, to work here when you’re not particularly good at anything!”

“You’re good at everything…”

She breathes a giggle, hiding her smile in her linen sleeve.

“No I’m not, George! Not like you and your polishing. Although – I think I can sing. Quite well. Or well enough. See – my mother says I’m terrible, that it’s not a skill. How am I going to use my voice as a servant of Camelot, how could I ever sing for the Pendragons? That’s what she says. Maybe she’s right…”

He’s a bit hazy on being friendly. On comforting. So he pats her shoulder awkwardly and mumbles some vaguely supportive comment towards her mouth. And it works well enough, for her to throw a brilliant smile back at him.

“Still, I should probably learn an actual skill. Like you! Look how useful you are.”

She’s silent – for a moment – as he pulls in the compliment. As he curves his mouth upwards.

And then she clears her throat and asks him if maybe he could teach her.

And then she throws her wild, energetic eyes towards his hand and the cloth and the dirtied armour and smiles and smiles.

Until he thinks maybe he’d like to marry  _her_  one day.

\--

  
She’s the most constant inconstant in his life – turning up in the strangest places at the most wonderful times and doing the oddest things.

The castle’s far less terrifying over time – but he’s still called odd, and his house is still empty and sometimes he’s  _so_ sad.

Then she sidles up to him at a banquet and runs her eyes over his funny ears and his funny haircut and the funny space between his eyebrows and tells him her name is  _Bronwen, by the way._

Then she pokes her tongue out at him in a crowded evening marketplace, waiting until he’s rightly shocked and then turning around and losing herself in the madness.

Then she sits cross-legged on the floor with him in Arthur’s empty chambers, the sunlight streaming across their quiet mouths and their curious expressions and a pile of brass.

Then she grabs his hand, wraps calloused fingers around his tired ones and walks him home, chatting non-stop.

Then she sings – wanders through a sepulchre corridor in the early hours of the morning  and lets a yawning lilt fall on her voice and doesn’t even snicker when he mumbles that she has  _the voice of a fallen angel,_ just grins and grins and bumps his shoulder.

Then she kisses him – leans over a polished chestplate and presses her happy mouth to his and tickles her warm breath across his face and mumbles  _I like you, George,_ before pulling herself upright and wandering out of the armoury.  
  
And he knows he’d like to marry her one day.

\--

 

It’s been months – and she hasn’t left. He doesn’t understand.

His body’s awash with insecurity, when it comes to her. Because he’s never been very good at  _loving_ people, never really had enough charm or finesse or humour to woo somebody and he’s worried that he’s failing her. Or that she’s playing pretend.

But she just smiles, and tells him to slow down and take it easy and of course she loves him and  _don’t listen to them, George_ and it’s only been a few months but she’d like to marry him one day.

\--

  
She’s blushing fiercely as she tells him about Lady Helen. Fixing a braid to the top of her head and throwing lullabies to his reflection in the mirror as justifiable evidence that of course she could never sing like  _her._

And although his memory isn’t fantastic, he’s learnt the curves of her face, and the way the muscles tense around her face when she’s worried and he’s prepared the clumsy condolences he always uses when she throws him off, turning around to face him, running a slender finger along the helmet in his lap and raising an eyebrow.

“I think she’s your fallen angel. Not me!”

And then she throws a kiss atop his mouth and sweeps a hand across his funny fringe and frowns in a way that makes him think she’s as worried about loving him as he is her.

And he forgets to kneel, or get a ring, or say any words that were fine or passionate or proper – the words just fall out of his mouth as she straightens her back and turns towards the door.

That he'd quite like to be her husband, as soon as possible.

\--

That night she presses a kiss to his shoulder that he barely notices, a platter of fruit between their bodies, as he watches the new boy – with the cropped hair and big ears and the tragic sort of expression – wander aimlessly around the kitchen.

“I’m just a servant, remember?” she says.

“She’ll love you”, he murmurs.

So she sticks her tongue in between her teeth and straightens her shoulders and grins up at him with wild eyes– all confidence and reinstated nonchalance. How could Lady Helen  _not_ love her?

And then she turns to leave, and he calls a stupid joke after her that makes the whole kitchen cringe, but he couldn’t care less, for once, because she laughs the most genuine laugh as she wanders out the door.  Like marrying George would just be the greatest adventure ever.

\--

 

And then she dies.

\--

  
He has no idea what to do.

Clumsy words fall out of Arthur’s mouth –  _I knew you were close_ and  _she’s got no other family_ and  _I’m terribly sorry_  and George stays silent. Bows and nods and thanks him with pursed smiles that feel  _so_ wrong in this room, until he leaves.

And even when he leaves – George doesn’t make a sound. Stays on the other side of the room and looks at the uncovered mirror and the fruit on the table and the curve of her face – grey and gaunt and nothing like he remembers.

And the same unexpected pain that shot through his body when she almost fell out of that tree, falls over his body now and stays there. Renders him useless and frozen and breathless and thinking that he didn’t love her properly. He never loved her like he should have.

And this was  _so_ unfair.

He stumbles his way over to her cold frame, and finds he can’t leave. So he props a pillow underneath her braided hair and lands his lips on her still eyelids and doesn’t take his face from hers until he has to come up for air, and gulps in air until the breaths turn into sobs and he’s tugging awkwardly at her shoulders and bursting with sadness that he doesn’t know how to contain, or make graceful or stop.

\--

 

He’s never been taught how to grieve, and he doesn’t think he’s doing it right, but he doesn’t know what else to do. So he stays in the armoury where she kissed him, and works away at everything in the room.

\--

 

People don’t really remember any more. At the start they’d ask him how he was doing, if he needed anything, if he was okay.

But then the seasons went by, where he wasn’t married to her, and other people died. And other people fell in love. And he learnt how to be on his own. How not to care when new servants called him  _odd._

Arthur doesn’t even remember. Doesn’t look at him twice as he crawls up his pillow, and asks his name, and throws a napkin full in his face.

 Doesn’t stop to ask him how it was to lose Bronwen before he places a hand on Guinevere’s shoulder and tugs a shirt over his head and tells her he’s going to find Merlin. (Arthur takes her for granted, he thinks).

Doesn’t ask if  _anybody_ ever laughed at his jokes about brass.

He wouldn’t tell him anyway.


End file.
